THE GREAT THIRST
INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND MASSIVE SPENDING ARE CRITICAL TO AVERTING INDIA’S IMPENDING WATER CATASTROPHE
More than 2,500 years ago, when the Indus Valley Civilisation had reached its zenith, it mysteriously lost its effulgence and disappeared suddenly. Many archaeologists believe it was due to a catastrophic water scarcity caused either by shifting rivers or by drastic climate change that forced people to abandon city settlements. The civilisation all but vanished except for the ruins it left behind, which were discovered only in the 20th century. Ominously for India, history seems to be repeating itself. A NITI Aayog report in 2018 stated bluntly that 600 million people, or nearly half of India’s population, face extreme water stress. That threefourths of India’s rural households do not have piped, potable water and rely on sources that pose a serious health risk. That India has become the world’s largest extractor of groundwater, accounting for 25 per cent of the total. That 70 per cent of our sources are contaminated and our major rivers are dying because of pollution. Its conclusion: ‘India is suffering from its worst water crisis in its history.’
It is evident that we must all work together to save ourselves from ruin. But what do we do? First, we need to understand both the availability and the patterns of our consumption. India has 18 per cent of the world’s population but has only 4 per cent of the global water resources. So, the water balance is severely adverse. Contrary to popular belief, it is neither domestic use nor industry that guzzles India’s water supply but agriculture which consumes over 85 per cent of our water. With only 40 per cent assured irrigation, our farmers depend heavily either on rains or on groundwater for their needs. Though the monsoon season in India extends over four months, we get barely 30 days of heavy rainfall in all. And our efforts to conserve rainwater remain woefully inadequate.
Yet, amidst all this water gloom, the momentum to find innovative solutions out of the crisis has picked up speed, as the india today team discovered while compiling this special issue. Take drinking water, for example. After providing toilets to every household and making India open defecation-free in his first term, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Jal Jeevan Mission at the start of his second term. Launched in August 2019, the ambitious scheme aims to provide potable water through taps to the 191 million rural households by 2024, from the existing one out of six households that have tap water.
Given the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic, there were doubts about the Jal Shakti ministry’s ability to meet its targets. Despite the odds, over 30 million new households have been provided with tap water during this period, equal to the number of households provided with taps since Independence. The Modi government achieved this by providing massive funding—Rs 3.6 lakh crore—and backing it with mission mode management and technology to monitor progress. What’s more, state governments are encouraging community participation in the operation and maintenance of water supply to their homes in the form of Pani Samitis. The Centre and states are also focusing on ensuring sustainability of water supply and quality rather than treating it as a one-shot affair. The most important outcome of these efforts is that women, who bore the brunt of the task of fetching water for households, wasting precious time, are being freed from that drudgery. This in itself will prove emancipating.
Apart from highcost big projects, a billion low-cost aquifer recharging methods could solve our water woes
Apart from ease of living, there is a clear link between socioeconomic development and water availability.
While experts appreciate the change in mindsets to provide drinking water supply, the real challenge, they say, is to bring a revolution in water use in farming. Hearteningly, this is being driven by a rare public private partnership between government and farmers, throwing up innovative cost-effective solutions. For instance, in Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh, water had become scarce for farmers, who were reduced to growing only one crop. An alert deputy commissioner helped the people get together to dig 10,000 farm ponds across villages that could store monsoon water. Farmers were given cheap bank loans to dig these ponds, the impact of which was felt almost immediately. In the next rainy season, farmers were able to grow high-yielding wheat varieties apart from diversifying to other crops. Most have repaid their loans and are on the road to prosperity.
There are scores of such examples of how farmers are turning around their fortunes by conserving water. The big message: alongside the transfer of water through high-cost large irrigation and drinking water projects, sustainable progress could be made by employing a billion low-cost aquifer recharging techniques suitable to local conditions.
While focusing on supply is good, the imperative is to tackle the demand side so that, as the government line goes, there is more crop per drop. Gujarat, once a perennially drought-prone state, has taken significant strides in inducing farmers to convert to drip irrigation. The state has done so by providing subsidies of 60-80 per cent of the cost of sprinklers apart from handholding farmers through the first cropping season. Already 20 per cent of the farmers have switched to micro-irrigation, saving as much as 40 per cent in water and labour costs, as an Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad study has revealed. They also earned an additional Rs 15,000 per hectare per crop.
In Punjab, where over-exploitation of water for paddy has seen a catastrophic drop in groundwater levels, there is an urgent need to diversify to other less water-intensive crops that can earn farmers the same income. Ditto for the sugarcane farmers of Maharashtra, where water use efficiency remains dismal. Haryana has shown the way by starting a scheme to give farmers a cash subsidy to stop growing paddy in groundwater-stressed areas and switch to other crops. Clearly, rather than issue fiats, states need to work as catalysts and persuade farmers to switch to crops that give them better remuneration while meeting the country’s food needs.
Another crisis area to tackle is the growing water shortage faced by our metros. NITI Aayog estimates that 21 major cities, including Delhi, would run out of groundwater by 2030. There are simple solutions like reviving water bodies as Bengaluru, once a city of lakes, can do. It is also perhaps time to rethink our waste disposal strategy and recycling of waste water. Currently, to transport faecal matter weighing 100 grams, we use six litres of water to flush it down. Can we develop technology to use less water as toilets in aircraft do? Our cities also employ centuries-old town-planning techniques of laying sewage pipes to carry solid waste to a common treatment plant on the outskirts. Can a more localised treatment plant be found and the treated water recycled either for industrial use or for parks in the vicinity? Delhi is working on an experiment to treat its sewage water to make it fit for industrial use. More such initiatives need to be taken up in addition to a total rethink on how we plan our water supply and wastewater disposal in cities.
Interlinking of rivers, while keeping environment considerations in mind, may be the answer to supplying water to dry regions, with the added benefit of harnessing water wasted in floods. But let’s not forget that it also makes economic sense to rejuvenate existing water bodies rather than just building more large dams to meet our needs. In the following pages, we have highlighted a host of such initiatives to conserve water from across the country that could be replicated with variations. Estimates are that if we continue with business as usual, India will have only half the water it needs by 2030. Day Zero for a catastrophe is not a century but just a decade away. We need to act, and post-haste. ■
The Jal Jeevan Mission is freeing women from the drudgery of fetching water. This will prove emancipating
GAJENDRA SINGH SHEKHAWAT, Union minister for Jal Shakti, spoke to Group Editorial Director (Publishing) RAJ CHENGAPPA about the water crisis that India faces and what the Modi government is doing to ease the situation and provide sustainable and quality supply for all uses. Excerpts:
Q. How serious is the water crisis in India?
A. We all know the whole world is facing the challenge of water availability, and the future seems very difficult. It is even more difficult and challenging for India because of the size of our population and its growth rate. We have almost 18 per cent of the world’s population, but only 4 per cent of the water available. The impact of climate change is knocking on our door, causing either cloudbursts or scanty rainfall. Our water bodies and water resources are some of the most contaminated, so the challenge is even bigger for us. In terms of per capita water availability, if it was somewhere around 5,000 cubic metres 50 years ago, it is now 1,500 cubic metres. The challenge is really, really very big.
Q. What plans does the government have to fulfil its promise of providing piped drinking water to all households by 2024?
A. When Modiji came to power in 2014, he launched several initiatives to bring ease of living to the common man, be it bank accounts, gas cylinders, housing or toilets. Continuing with these, when he came to power for the second time, he has taken the initiative to provide drinking water to every household. Of the 190 million households in the country, only 16 per cent, or 30.2 million households were getting water through taps in their home, the rest were dependent on the standpost or hand pumps. So, women were compelled to go out of their homes and travel long distances to get water. Apart from the availability of water, its quality too was a very big challenge. The
To succeed in our water missions, we’ll have to take them up as Jan Andolans “The whole world is facing the challenge of water scarcity. The problem is bigger in India because of our population and its increase”
prime minister launched the initiative to provide safe, quality- and quantity-assured water through pipes to every household by 2024. Rs 3.6 lakh crore was announced for this and we have started working [on it]. And since water is a state subject, it is being done in consultation and cooperation with them. But I can say with pride that within 15 months, despite the pandemic, we have provided 30.2 million households with piped potable water, double the current number. We are working on mission mode and are confident that we will meet the 2024 target.
Q. What did you do to fast-track the Har Ghar Nal Se Jal programme? A. We have done this through four things: political will that the PM has demonstrated, public spending being done by our government, partnerships we have engaged in and continuous persuasion.
Q. Groundwater in India is over-exploited. In addition to the falling water levels, we are also facing huge scarcity. What is the government doing about it? A. Groundwater is a very big challenge since our dependence on it is among the highest in the world. Almost 1,580 (of the total of 7,197) blocks have their groundwater over- or critically-exploited. Of India’s 735 districts, 257 are water-stressed. In his second term, the prime minister has brought all the departments and ministries dealing with water under one ministry. We have speeded up the programme of aquifer mapping, and based on this data, we will work on a recharge mechanism. The thrust is the sustainability of our water resources.
Q. With agriculture being a water-guzzler, what is the ministry doing to ensure farmers use it efficiently? A. When we talk of water conservation, we usually blame industry. But the truth is that agriculture uses 89 per cent of the total water consumed. We may be among the world’s largest producers of wheat, rice and sugarcane, but when it comes to crop per drop, we are not doing well at all compared to other developed countries. So, we need to work on water use efficiency. Though agriculture is a state subject, under the leadership of Modiji, the government of India is pushing for smart irrigation systems, including micro irrigation.
Q. Isn’t it time we put a price on water?
A. This is the time we can do it with conviction, in the future we will have to do it with compulsion. Ultimately, we will have to do it.
Q. We have been talking about cleaning the Ganga since 1985. How different is the Namami Gange Programme launched by the Modi government? A. Earlier, the clean-up of the Ganga was done in a piecemeal fashion and overall only Rs 4,000 crore was spent. Many of the projects were incomplete or not operated and maintained properly as it was the responsibility of the states and they had not allocated adequate budgets for it. Under Modiji, the National Mission for Clean Ganga was accorded the status of an authority and Rs 20,000 crore sanctioned. Over 350 projects have been taken up to clean the Ganga. We will make it among the top 10 cleanest rivers in the world.
Q. Are you planning similar initiatives for other polluted rivers, such as the Yamuna?
A. While talking of cleaning the Ganga, the prime minister has envisaged cleaning up the entire Gangetic basin. We have started working on first-level tributaries such as the Yamuna and Kosi and all other tributaries simultaneously. It will become a model for cleaning up the other rivers in the country.
Q. Finally, what is your big message for the World Water Day from India?
A. Water is everyone’s business. Everyone will have to use water rationally and efficiently. For us to succeed in our various water missions, we have to take them up as ‘Jan Andolans (people’s movements)’.
“This is the time we can do it (put a price on water) with conviction; in the future, we will have to do it with compulsion. Ultimately, we will have to do it”